A few years ago I decided to put my Trek 412 back to original, I had upgraded it to all Suntour Cyclone back in the day but saved all the original parts in a box. The chain however was original. The original freewheel was a 14-30 Suntour 888. I had been running a 14-28 with a Cyclone GT rear derailleur. I don't remember ever having to cut the original chain, but when I put it back to original with the original 14-30 freewheel, the chain was too short. I dug up a new old stock chain, and still had to cut 5 links of another new chain to get it to work with the 14-30 freewheel and original VXGT rear derailleur. Luckily I had several new old stock original chains that I squirreled away back when the bike was new. If I remember right, the original chain, as removed from the bike then was 117 links and the new chain came out of the box with only 114 links. I needed 119.